A bridge too far sadly!

Boro fans magnificent right to the end and noticed Neville appluaded Yusef or his continual support.

Never again will I watch a game surrounded by Chelsea fans corperate hospitality or not both Daniel and I found it very uncomfortable not being able to make any comments about what was being said  and the ways our fans were being taunted, one guy in front of me kept standing up just as goals were being scored thus ensuring I missed the goal action on some of their goals. God I so wanted to say something but we decided to get out before and of time to ensure easy passage on the tube at Fulham Broadway for the journey home.

Hated the whole experience and was saddened by the gulf in quality and the fact we gave away so many chances for Chelsea due to errors. Think we rued the chance to equalise after they scored the first goal.

Down in the dumps but the result was expected I suppose but not by that margin.

In case members have not seen the goals here are the very lowlights of last nights encounter

 

https://www.skysports.com/football/chelsea-vs-middlesbrough/report/502293

10 hours ago, SouthernSmoggie said:

Commentator summed it up well: too many absentees and too many mistakes. Shame we didn't make them work for it tonight. 

Two legged format is a killer for lower league sides though. You need lightning to strike twice and that's a huge ask.

yeah 2 legs is just a fiddle to get best final possible for neutrals, i always prefer a cup where you get one chance per round, more fun that way for everyone and better cup memories for many teams, but guess teams outside the prem in the final is a tougher sell all over the world for tv money. 

10 hours ago, DevKWat said:

We really need a great end to the window, think the whole club feels extremely deflated right now and probably going to lose our best player so far this season… 

he wasnt the clubs best player until villa bid tho lol or even a guaranteed starter 

6 hours ago, Robin Johnson said:

What utter rubbish. As if Chelsea would have relied on leaked info on a message board. The score was 6-1. We gifted goals and demonstrated we are a million miles away from having a competitive team/ squad to be able to compete in the Prem

Thats where concerns should lay

the line up you posted was pretty much what most people would predict if they were up to date on injuries,

it did zero harm as no doubt poch will of already had people tell him what they thought the starting line up would be, wasnt like there was some wild card in there that no one would predict.

until the leaks start to predict things that others never do then you can't give them the credit they may possibly deserve, as could just be someone working out who they think carrick will pick (like you get people making things up for transfers when they think something is likely to happen).

not saying they are made up but they are not much of a big deal when they are based on who is injured and who has carrick been picking over the last 2 or so games

9 hours ago, Hammy legend said:

We have seen players before when they wanted out give up the ghost - Ramirez, Yakubu. Rogers certainly didnt tonight. 

that usually comes when the transfer window closes, as while its open them not getting the move straight away might just be part of the process, and you never know what the club are telling them too, they could be stringing them along with no intention to sell for example, then after its not happening when window closes is when they tend to turn. 

not that he seems the type, but sometimes you just don't know they are going that way until its too late, an agents influence can never be under estimated

if he was going to turn if don't get his way there is no way he still wouldn't be trying as hard as he could last night to shine as its a big platform to play on in the spotlight, all its done is raise his profile, easy for press etc to frame it as boro got hammered by chelsea but villa target rogers still did well. 

even tho we got hammered at their place at least we beat them at ours, that is one special night that wont be forgotten.

think i'd rather it went the way it did over 2 legs, than get beat 1-0 in both

 

now we are knocked out, its back to being a micky mouse cup we didn't want to win anyways lol 

 

Difference in the 2 games is simple, at ours they missed all the chances we gifted them, at theirs they buried them.
Understand the drive to play from the back but keep the press honest and go long when you need to, losing the ball 50yds from goal is better than 20yds.

a week and a half to get over this, Sunderland next and a big chance to put smiles back on faces, C'mon Boro

Not interested in all this ‘plucky Boro’ and back slapping nonsense that’s going about. We were ***. Carrick got it wrong. Engel, Clarke, Barlaser, Crooks, Howson and Hackney were awful. You can’t have that many poor performances in a league cup semi and expect to get a result. Chelsea were clearly much the better side, just like they were in the first leg. No denying that but we handed them progression.
 

What’s also annoyed me is the 5 points we’ve dropped against Coventry and Rotherham in the lead up. That would have us tucked up nicely in the play offs.

Edited January 24, 20242 yr by Humpty

20 minutes ago, Humpty said:

Not interested in all this ‘plucky Boro’ and back slapping nonsense that’s going about. We were ***. Carrick got it wrong. Engel, Clarke, Barlaser, Crooks, Howson and Hackney were awful. You can’t have that many poor performances in a league cup semi and expect to get a result. Chelsea were clearly much the better side, just like they were on the first leg.
 

What’s also annoyed me is the 5 points we’ve dropped against Coventry and Rotherham in the lead up. That would have us tucked up nicely in the play offs.

I expected to lose but that was pretty much as bad as it could have possibly gone. The embarrassing part is Chelsea didn't even have to be good or work particularly hard. They just casually tucked away the endless chances we gifted them, even later in the game when they'd started resting key players for kids. 

Chelsea are a Premier League team with far batter players than us, but we're not talking about an all conquering City or Liverpool side here. I know we had injuries but a top half Championship side should be able to dig into a low block and make it difficult for them to score. We had a mostly fit defence and midfield. At least not concede 6 ffs. Neville spotted the problem in our set up while it was still 0-0, Carrick reacted once the game was gone. 

I'm still more annoyed about failing to beat Rotherham twice though. We need to make good use of this two week break and come back with a fitter squad and good attitude, as a loss at home to Sunderland puts the fans right on the teams back I reckon - especially if Rogers is sold. 

Edited January 24, 20242 yr by SouthernSmoggie

Ouch. Glad I stopped watching when I did.

Had a feeling it might be a bad night...but wow. Chelsea didn't just batter us, they served us up with chips, mushy peas and a pot of tartare sauce.

Think I'm with Humpty and SouthernSmoggie in that Boro ought to have made more of a game of it. The first 2 goals I saw were mostly down to poor defending...from what I've read we didn't exactly make it hard for Chelsea to get the rest either.

Mostly disappointed because Boro as a club looked terrible on a big stage and that kind of result could have an impact on squad morale. Winning this tie was always going to be a big ask, but I was hoping the lads would at least give a good account of themselves.

 

We really need a good result against Sunderland now. The players have got plenty of time to reflect and rediscover their mojo. Carrick and the coaches also have time to work with the squad. Hope they use it wisely...

Edited January 24, 20242 yr by AnglianRed

10 hours ago, osvaldo said:

Fans were amazing tonight. Some players (mostly Engel & barlaser) showed they are miles off premier league quality tonight. Hopefully lessons are learnt and we use it to push on for the playoffs. Thought Rogers looked very good

You still want premier league football? I'm not sure I could handle that sort of hammering every week...I honestly think our owner knows that too...we don't have billions to keep us in the Premier league

I'm still more angry about Saturday than last night, always expected to get beaten and I don't think there was any shame in losing, the manner of the defeat is what's harder to take, just disappointed that the gameplan and performance was so bad.

 

Edited January 24, 20242 yr by TeaCider24

22 minutes ago, Barnaby said:

You still want premier league football? I'm not sure I could handle that sort of hammering every week...I honestly think our owner knows that too...we don't have billions to keep us in the Premier league

The squad would get a significant overhaul if we got promoted.

We wouldn't go on a spending spree like we did under Robson and McLaren, but more (hopefully) than we did under Karanka. 

There is a balance to be struck and other clubs survive without spending Chelsea or Man City type money.

 

A lot was made of the Howson stuff last night on the tele but I think the only thing that genuinely bothered me about it was that Dijksteel was on the bench and I have to wonder whether he could have played more of the game. He was just back into the squad again so I'm not sure if he was considered fit enough to play.

I can see what Carrick was trying to do with the 11 on the pitch, though. It might have looked bad defensively but there was definitely an air of positive attacking mindset in the call, in relation to a quick transition to help us get up the pitch without too much movement in our own backline, something which I think there was good evidence of in the first 15 minutes of the game at least. When we retrieved the ball, Howson and Barlaser were in good positions to help us get control of the ball and in terms of positive attacking moves, Howson was looking good early on.

Neville was saying we should have had VDB inside to deal with Enzo, that part of it I have no problem with in and of itself as I think VDB is a better defender than Howson. But, whilst there was little evidence of him being a threat on the night, we had Mudryk to worry about on our right hand side. Neville was suggesting that instead of Howson dropping into the middle to watch for Enzo, 'a centre-mid' should be pulling out wide to cover for Mudryk to allow the right-back to tuck inside. He never specifically said it should be Howson but honestly, who else would it have been? Barlaser? Crooks? Hackney? There's nobody there in those options that sounds good, particularly in relation to the positive turnaround in possession if we got it.

The other possible player to pick that position up could have been Forss but again, I think we didn't want to lose any of the positive impact he could have had further up the pitch by dragging him into a match-long defensive covering battle with Mudryk. Again, in transition, I think there was evidence this was the right call with the idea of attacking Chelsea and not just sitting in and defending for 90 minutes. With hindsight, if we knew Mudryk was going to be the worst player on the pitch before kick-off then perhaps we could have handled things differently but that would have been naive to the extreme.

Just on the most important goals of the night, too, both of the first 2 goals in my opinion were individual mistakes from Howson. Not a tactical mistake, just an individual mistake. The first one is maybe harsh but he never came to the ball under Broja's control with any sense of clearing it with one touch, he tried to control the ball out of his possession and ended up putting it into his own goal. The opportunity was there to clear it, in my opinion. The second one was worse though. Neville spoke about Enzo's clever movement to end up in the position to score the second but if you watch it back, Howson is in a perfect position to deal with him pretty much the whole time the ball is in the box and whilst Enzo does shift towards Howson then away, I never once saw Howson turning and looking out to see that Enzo was coming to attack the box. Particularly when the topic of conversation was "it should be VDB in that position", if VDB also didn't know where Enzo was then he would have done the same thing as Howson and been left flapping at nothing.

From that point though, the tension in the game on Chelsea's shoulders was lost, we lost what fluency we had built in the first 15 minutes, we were sloppy and they were on it and wanted to put the game to bed. I think from the point of the 2nd goal, the mentality shift was what led to what came next, particularly the next 2 goals in the half. It's a shame but there was always a likelihood it would take place. And don't get me wrong, I don't think the tactical setup was perfect, I have questions but I think I can see what we were trying to do and why we were trying to do it. Unfortunately, it was always going to be a test at Stamford Bridge to come up with something perfect.

 

4 minutes ago, wilsoncgp said:

A lot was made of the Howson stuff last night on the tele but I think the only thing that genuinely bothered me about it was that Dijksteel was on the bench and I have to wonder whether he could have played more of the game. He was just back into the squad again so I'm not sure if he was considered fit enough to play.

I can see what Carrick was trying to do with the 11 on the pitch, though. It might have looked bad defensively but there was definitely an air of positive attacking mindset in the call, in relation to a quick transition to help us get up the pitch without too much movement in our own backline, something which I think there was good evidence of in the first 15 minutes of the game at least. When we retrieved the ball, Howson and Barlaser were in good positions to help us get control of the ball and in terms of positive attacking moves, Howson was looking good early on.

Neville was saying we should have had VDB inside to deal with Enzo, that part of it I have no problem with in and of itself as I think VDB is a better defender than Howson. But, whilst there was little evidence of him being a threat on the night, we had Mudryk to worry about on our right hand side. Neville was suggesting that instead of Howson dropping into the middle to watch for Enzo, 'a centre-mid' should be pulling out wide to cover for Mudryk to allow the right-back to tuck inside. He never specifically said it should be Howson but honestly, who else would it have been? Barlaser? Crooks? Hackney? There's nobody there in those options that sounds good, particularly in relation to the positive turnaround in possession if we got it.

The other possible player to pick that position up could have been Forss but again, I think we didn't want to lose any of the positive impact he could have had further up the pitch by dragging him into a match-long defensive covering battle with Mudryk. Again, in transition, I think there was evidence this was the right call with the idea of attacking Chelsea and not just sitting in and defending for 90 minutes. With hindsight, if we knew Mudryk was going to be the worst player on the pitch before kick-off then perhaps we could have handled things differently but that would have been naive to the extreme.

Just on the most important goals of the night, too, both of the first 2 goals in my opinion were individual mistakes from Howson. Not a tactical mistake, just an individual mistake. The first one is maybe harsh but he never came to the ball under Broja's control with any sense of clearing it with one touch, he tried to control the ball out of his possession and ended up putting it into his own goal. The opportunity was there to clear it, in my opinion. The second one was worse though. Neville spoke about Enzo's clever movement to end up in the position to score the second but if you watch it back, Howson is in a perfect position to deal with him pretty much the whole time the ball is in the box and whilst Enzo does shift towards Howson then away, I never once saw Howson turning and looking out to see that Enzo was coming to attack the box. Particularly when the topic of conversation was "it should be VDB in that position", if VDB also didn't know where Enzo was then he would have done the same thing as Howson and been left flapping at nothing.

From that point though, the tension in the game on Chelsea's shoulders was lost, we lost what fluency we had built in the first 15 minutes, we were sloppy and they were on it and wanted to put the game to bed. I think from the point of the 2nd goal, the mentality shift was what led to what came next, particularly the next 2 goals in the half. It's a shame but there was always a likelihood it would take place. And don't get me wrong, I don't think the tactical setup was perfect, I have questions but I think I can see what we were trying to do and why we were trying to do it. Unfortunately, it was always going to be a test at Stamford Bridge to come up with something perfect.

yeah if we were going to play 5 at the back i would of rather had Diksteel at RB and kept howson in midfield (or bench him) and build the 5 with all defenders in their best positions.

saying that - although they abused howson playing out of position and showed him up at times, I do not think we would of won still keeping howson in position. 

just wasn't our night and he clearly had them all fired up to rectify the embarrassment they had at our ground. this is like his one saving grace for a season of not doing much at all. 

 

should be exiled for life